


Losing Touch

by counterheist



Series: vampire au, i swear to god i can't believe i have a [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Gen, M/M, but is it still spain, by the way, gratuitous Latin, gratuitous killers lyrics, romano needs a long nap in a very white room, the major character death is spain getting vampireized, veneziano is a little bit concerned for your mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-06 10:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It must be true.<br/>//<br/>Or, the one where Antonio was turned into a vampire as a teenager and Lovino's a deacon with a grudge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing Touch

**Author's Note:**

> [Request fic from tumblr.](http://counterheist.tumblr.com/post/31255244316/losing-touch-or-another-request-fic-that-got-slightly)

Lovino checks his watch. The stupid thing’s stopped again, of course, and he flicks his fingers against the glass face once, twice, before the hands begin trekking and ticking by again. Unfortunately it’s not so easy to stop time. Unfortunately, a lot of things aren’t easy. _Nothing’s_ easy, except those short sharp slides down to Hell, and there’s no telling how long Lovino can stay away from them. It’s been something like a lifetime, but closer to three—five?– years, something closer to years than to centuries for all that it doesn’t feel like it, and Lovino hasn’t shaved in three days, and his coat smells, and he is kneeling in front of a statue of the Virgin in a church he’s never seen before, and he’s tired. And he’s alone.

 _Tick_.

Candles along thin shelves to either side of the alcove flicker along with stray breezes, and maybe they’re sending the prayers they were bought for to heaven, or maybe they’re attracting attention from the dark. That’s another thing Lovino doesn’t know, and something he should be watching out for, but he’s not. He’s—he should know better. These five years haven’t been for nothing! He’s trained. He’s _trained._ Every day, every second, he’s never forgotten, even though he told Feli to do just that. Told him, and swore to him ( _at him_ ) to forget. I’m going to be gone for a day. Stay with our cousin. Don’t open the door for anybody but her. Say your rosary, and don’t you dare take His name in vain anymore, dammit, I can hear you when you stub your toe on the third step!

While the shadows play across the Virgin’s face, Lovino runs his fingers across the smooth, careworn beads of his own rosary. Tonight will be the Sorrowful Mysteries, again, even though it’s Sunday night, not quite eleven, and even though he says them every single day. He only properly finishes his rosary once a year, during Lent, and he knows his fixation is shameful, but. It’s. It’s how things are.

“…óra pro nóbis—” The shadows near the lectern twist and roil and close in on each other, and Lovino’s left hand holds tight to the string of beads while, at the same time, his right releases the safety on his crossbow. The dull click echoes around the nave, but sound is one of their last senses, so Lovino isn’t any more scared than he already is. Has been. Is. “Peccatóribus,” Lovino finishes, although that isn’t where it ends and this isn’t where this will end either. He— _It_ checks up on Lovino. It doesn’t do anything else.

Hasn’t.

Yet.

“Lovi!,” it laughs, “Lovi, it took me so long to find you but I had to congratulate you! They say you’re a deacon now.” Footsteps stop directly in front of the altar and Lovino feels his hands shake. “I’m so proud of you; really, really proud!”

That’s not out of fear. Lovino’s hands haven’t shaken from fear since he was seventeen, trapped between a half-empty oil drum and a clumped pile of wet rope wound thicker than his arm, ankle twisted, arm bleeding, gasping out his hiding spot with every racing inhale, so, so, _so_ afraid to die. _It_ had been there then too. It had said the same things, reaching over those ropes, with its wrong red eyes and its stolen smile. “Lovi you shouldn’t be out at night alone,” it had said. “Something bad could happen to you.”

Lovino’s hands shake out of pure, unholy, oft-confessed, never-forgiven, never-forgiving, never-yielding rage, and with every word that _thing_ says with Antonio’s voice, they only shake that much more.

“This time I’m going to kill you,” Lovino breathes, eyes locked on the Virgin’s crown of stars. “I’m going to kill you so his soul can go to heaven and you can take your place in Hell.”

Its eyes are watching him. Its hands rub together, but otherwise it doesn’t move. “What a thing for a boy trying to become a priest to say!” it chides, “I should wash your mouth out with soap, Lovi.”

The wooden bolt lands in the pillar to its left.

The shot was—should have been—damn him— _it_ —for never staying _still_ —a kill. But not even a hair off its head is out of place, and now it’s got what it wanted, Lovino’s acknowledgement, and now, even though he is on holy ground, somehow, now, interrupted from his prayers, Lovino is the one defending. Every moment looking into its eyes is a poisonous disadvantage because one moment it is by the altar and the next it could be slitting Lovino’s throat. And then Lovino would have failed himself. His teachers. Feli.

But most of all, Antonio. Antonio, seventeen and tall. Antonio, with the pat on the back and the stupid, easy smile. Antonio, with the scared eyes and the decorative axe stolen from the top of his father’s mantle and the promise that everything’s going to be okay, Lovi, stay really quiet and I promise they won’t think to come in here, I just have to make sure all the windows are shut, I’ll be back.

Antonio, with the empty grave.

It puts flowers on that grave. Once a year. Blood red carnations. Two of them. It has mocked and stolen and tainted _so much_ and it wears his goddamn ( _Lord, forgive me_ ) face every. Single. _Day_. And it sends Lovino birthday presents, and it follows him, and on top of that, and everything else, on top of every single chuckle it makes with his throat it also leaves flowers on his grave on the anniversary of his death, its birth, and it waits, for Lovino with his own votive and bouquet, and it looks up into his eyes and it winks and it disappears, and it is in those moments that Lovino would do anything.

Anything at all.

To tear it apart.

It stretches that face into another untruth and Lovino raises his crossbow, reloaded, to point directly at the heart ( _that enormous, oafish heart_ ) it doesn’t have. Only Antonio had that heart. The candles behind Lovino flicker again, and some go out. But the one on the very end, the one closest to the Virgin’s robe, almost, but not quite out of Lovino’s line of sight; that candle, the one Lovino lit himself, for him, as always, doesn’t waver.

Lovino bites back his prayers and allows his hands to shake with hatred.

It doesn’t stop smiling.

“Beatrice isn’t real, little Lovi, and I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> and that’s the story of how I can get invested in anything if the right frame of mind strikes me and the words start going. Damn. The gears are ticking now, and I wasn’t able to include everything in here, but this turned out nicely, I think. I hope you like it, anon, even though it’s doubtless not exactly what you were looking for. Also that you don’t mind a little gratuitous Latin; hey, if you’ve gotten me writing vampires then I get my gratuitous Latin. :T it’s the ‘pray for us sinners’ part from the Hail Mary and I sure hope it’s right because I don’t know Latin. The last line is more stupid references. Basically, Romano’s a little bit off his rocker and vampire!?Spain is taunting him about how he’s raised pre-change!Spain up to be this perfect figure who is, when it gets down to it, unattainable. And also standing right in front of you about to kill you ~drama~


End file.
